La Juive

Halévy’s gripping opera had not been heard at the Met for almost 70 years when it was revived for tenor Neil Shicoff a month before this broadcast. His searing account of Eléazar, a Jewish goldsmith burdened by a terrible secret quickly became a modern operatic classic. Soile Isokoski is his beloved daughter Rachel, in love with a man who turns out not to be Samuel, a simple workman in her father’s shop, but Prince Léopold (Eric Cutler). Rachel is sent to her gruesome death by Cardinal de Brogni (Ferruccio Furlanetto), who discovers Eléazar’s secret too late.